Move LabVIEW INI, other config setups to User folder

[Matthew_Kelton]

Currently, all setup (any any other configurable items) for LabVIEW is stored in the LabVIEW folder hierarchy.  I would like to see it moved to the User folders.  This would provide several advantages:

1. Multiple users can use LabVIEW without having to worry about reconfiguring someone else's setup.  This can be especially nice for the pallette menus, if different users like to "tweak" the default layout and create personal custom palltte menus.
2. For people who use roaming profiles (such as me), whatever station I sit down at and log into will have the LabVIEW configuration I use on every system.  Any modifcation is automatically updated in my profile and "moves" with me from PC to PC. 
3. It would provide an easier way to backup settings, since all customizable settings will be in one place, and not mixed in with LabVIEW installation files which aren't customizable.

[TCPlomp]

 A tip you can start LabVIEW using specified labview.ini.

Some tips are giving by Tomi Maila on installing LabVIEW on Windows Server:

“C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.5\LabVIEW.exe” -pref “%HOMEPATH%\LabVIEW.ini”

And while we are at it:

Change the default data directory from %User Data%\LabVIEW to %user data%\labview xxxx.

This will prevent the recompilation of old labview probes by newer versions.

Ton

[Matthew_Kelton]

I do know about the INI file switch.  But it only covers the INI file, not everything else which can be customized, such as palettes.

With regard to your additional item, perhaps the installer should ask if it should upgrade the folder, since I am sure a lot of people (if not most) would be upgrading LabVIEW, but the smaller group of us (me included) would be installing the versions in parallel.

[Matthew_Kelton]

I was thinking about this more, and I kind of glossed over "other configurable items."  The pallette menus would be nice.  It would also be nice to have the user.lib folder, custom error folders, etc. in the User Folder as well.

Now, what would be nice in these situations is to also support the All Users Folder.  This will allow for "default" setups and would remove the necessity of people needing to make multiple copies of the same library in the User folders.  Doing a merging of files similar to what Windows does for the Desktop and start menu would allow the user to override the default file with a newer/customized version and add files only of interest to that user.

For example, if the lab uses OpenG, it could go in the Default Users folder, but I could add my own tools to my User Folder.

With hard drive space as cheap as it is today, I don't know if the added complication is worth it, but it would be more in tune with what several other programs are doing.

[grubin698]

This would also be useful for user accounts for which the Program Files directory has been locked down by the admins.  With our default settings here,  LabVIEW is unable to save any user preferences.

[silmaril]

I think the most important point is that in any modern operating system (including Windows), there are distinct directories for storing applications and user data.

On a properly configurated machine, a user cannot write in the program files directory.

This means that any well-designed applications stores all the user data in the appropriate directories.

Sorry to say so, but it's really time for NI to catch up with modern OS architectures in this aspect!

So anything that's potentially (over-)written while running the application must not reside in the Windows program files directory, but rather under %appdata%.

This includes labview.ini, user.lib, instr.li, palettes (and whatever I am missing right now).

I'd also vote strongly against putting everything under "My Documents", since most of this doesn't really fit there, too.

[JÞB]

Back in the day, when there were about 12 of us sharing a few score lab computers, we added a line to the log-in and log-out scripts to copy our user specific LabVIEW ini's from the network to the local machine. 

This probably kept us from having extensive criminal records full of assult, and manslaughter charges (I can see any reason to elevate any resulting deaths to "murder" and, perhaps some of those avoided deaths would have been ruled "Justifiable homocide" if the jury was loaded with any LabVIEW developers)

On the other hand, why stop at the machine?  I'ld love to sync my LabVIEW ini to a cloud service and pull it down when I activate LabVIEW or from an new "Tools" menu entry.  Kudos

[Fewoizz]

I'd like the option to get my custom LabVIEW options for the cloud based on my user ID.  I am so tired of changing my preferences so often.  I especially hate changing Place front panel terminals as icons.  I get that it makes sense as a default but if anyone has used LabVIEW more than a few times this setting is not normal.  Beyond that I have my preferences and I need to change them with every LabVIEW installation.  Probably changed these parameters over 50 times in my days.